Wednesday, 23 July 2014
MH17 plane crash: First victims arrive in Netherlands
Two planes carrying bodies
from crashed flight MH17 have landed in the Netherlands where a day of
mourning for the 298 victims has been declared.
Experts there will begin to identify the dead, most of whom were Dutch.Pro-Russian rebels have been widely accused of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines plane on 17 July.
UK government sources say intelligence shows rebels deliberately tampered with evidence, moving bodies and placing parts from other planes in the debris.
As fighting continued in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, officials in Kiev told the BBC that two aircraft, thought to be military jets, had been downed just 35km (20 miles) from the crash site.
The officials had no information on the cause of the crashes, or the fate of the pilots.
US intelligence officials had earlier released evidence to the media that they said showed the separatists' involvement in bringing down flight MH17.
Rebels have also been accused of exaggerating the number of bodies transported from the crash site to the town of Kharkiv on Tuesday.
They had claimed 282 bodies had been loaded on to a train, but experts said only 200 could be verified.
Honour guards carried the coffins on to two planes at Kharkiv airport
Teams of investigators from several countries are still at the crash site
Ambassadors, officials and soldiers gathered to see off the planes.
Australian government envoy Angus Houston said the ceremony was intended to give the victims the "respect and dignity they deserve" after a "tragedy of unspeakable proportions".
The planes arrived in Eindhoven where they were met by members of the Dutch royal family and Prime Minister Mark Rutte along with relatives of the victims.
A day of mourning is being held in the Netherlands, Anna Holligan reports
The bodies are due to be taken to the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks south of Hilversum for identification.
Mr Rutte said that process could take months.
In a separate process, the "black box" flight-data recorders from MH17 have arrived in the UK, where they will be examined at the headquarters of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough.
